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The Buzz About Honey

By Elliot L. Gang

Many vegetarians, animal rights activists, and environmentalists already avoid bee-derived products, including honey, beeswax, bee propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly.  Those who do not may be unaware of how harmful the cultivation of such commercial products is to the famously busy insects whose lives are directly and adversely affected.

According to Stephen Buchmann, a research entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center and adjunct professor of entomology at the University of Arizona , there are 30,000-40,000 bee species wordwide, 4,000-5,000 of which live in the United States .  Most bees neither produce honey nor live in colonies large enough to make honey collection worthwhile.  Even fewer species live in permanent colonies, making it feasible for humans to raise them. One species meeting all three commercial criteria is Apis mellifera, better known as the temperate zone honeybee, one of eight species of honeybee.  Today, nearly all commercially available honey is produced by more than 20 sub-species of this bee. Humans have spread Apis mellifera throughout the world, often crowding out indigenous species.

Vomit, By Any Other Name…

            Typically, honeybee hives contain a single egg-laying queen, tens of thousands of non-breeding female workers, and a few hundred male drones.  Honeybees gather three major items from the wild: pollen, nectar, and tree sap. Nectar and pollen, from flowers, are used for food.  Honeybees drink nectar from flowers, then regurgitate it back and forth to each other to partially digest it.  (The beehive has been described as a collective stomach.)  They then regurgitate the partially digested nectar once more and fan it with their wings until it is too thick and concentrated to spoil.  This partially dried bee vomit is called honey.  Honey is stored in hollow beeswax cells integral to the structure of the hive. Although it contains trace amounts of protein, vitamins, and minerals, they are so dilute that honey essentially lacks any nutritional value except for its calorie content.

            Pollen is the bees’ source of protein, vitamins, and minerals.  The bees collect pollen on hairs and in “baskets” on their legs and store it in the hive.  Tree sap collected by bees is called propolis, and is used with beeswax (secreted by special glands in the bees’ abdomens) to build the hive.  Royal jelly is a protein-rich secretion produced by worker bees to feed other hive members during times of exceptional need.

            When humans collect honey, some or all of the beeswax cells containing the honey are separated from the hive.  The honey is removed from the cells by crushing the cells, melting the beeswax, or using a centrifuge.  Whether honey is gathered in the wild or taken from hives kept by beekeepers, bees (including eggs and larvae) are killed.

            If honey is gathered from wild bees, the hive is usually destroyed in the process.  Typically, less then 25 percent of the relocated hives survive: a failure rate 7.5 times greater than that of undisturbed hives.  Even if the hive is not completely destroyed, much of the honey the bees depend on for food is stolen, and the damaged hive is susceptible to predators.

            During honey collection, smoke, forced air, or noxious repellants are often passed over the hive to control the bees.  This is often described as “calming” them, but since bees cannot tell us what they feel, an equally valid interpretation is that they are paralyzed with fear.

            Some bees are killed inadvertently during the collecting process from managed hives, although modern beekeeping techniques tend to reduce fatalities. This is because devices called “queen excluders” are sometimes used to eliminate eggs or larvae from an area of the hive. Bees are also killed when managed hives are shipped to maximize use of the colony for pollination and honey production. Much like poultry farmers manage layer hens, beekeepers kill bees to eliminate unnecessary or excess bees, because hive productivity is low, or as part of selective breeding programs. Poisons are often used to kill the bees. Economics and the beekeeper’s personal convenience decide the bees’ fate.

            Currently, annual U.S. honey consumption is approximately 275 million pounds; yearly domestic honey production is about 210 million pounds, from about 2.4 million bee colonies. As of 1992, there were 125,000 beekeepers in the United States , 41 percent fewer than in 1976.  Most beekeepers are hobbyists or part-timers; the typical commercial beekeeper has 1,500-2,500 colonies, and about 600 beekeepers supply 75 percent of the U.S. honey crop.

            The consumption of honey is promoted by the National Honey Board, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service. Funded by an assessment on all honey produced or imported into the United States , the board has an annual budget of about $3 million.

Bee’s Needs

            Honey is a beehive’s main source of energy.  Honeybees maintain a reserve to survive cold weather and periods when there is no food.  However, bees must work very hard to produce honey. Unless there is a need to gather nectar, bees will almost always perform other tasks.  The average honeybee can survive about 400 nectar-gathering trips before dying from exhaustion (assuming she survives predators outside the hive).  A mere quarter ounce of honey represents 400-550 flights’ worth of nectar.  The human taste for honey is literally working millions of bees to death.

            Beeswax is an even bigger drain on the hive’s resources.  The energy to produce an ounce of beeswax requires more than a pound of honey, plus adequate pollen.  This equals the entire lives’ works of at least 60-70 bees.

            Excessive inbreeding of honeybees results in a lack of genetic diversity, leading to greater disease susceptibility.  Currently, beekeepers in many states suffer up to 50 percent colony loss due to honeybee tracheal mites; nationwide, the sometimes fatal Nosema disease affects 60 percent of all hives.  Feral bee populations suffered a 90 percent reduction from about 1994 to 1996 because of the Varoa mite, according to Eric Mussen, the extension apiculturist at the University of California at Davis .  Some experts have predicted that the spread of aggressive so-called “Africanized” bees could cause up to 80 percent of the beekeepers in the southern United States to abandon their hives.

            Commercial honey production can have an adjunct effect on other wildlife, too. According to Bod Safford, Black Bear Control Program Coordinator at the California Department of Fish and Game, beekeepers account for 5-10 percent of the permits issued to kill bears.

            Aside from their ability to produce honey, honeybees must be understood and appreciated for their vital roles as pollinators of wild plants and domesticated crops.  However, they are not the only ones; wild pollinators also include other kinds of bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, and beetles.  Many birds are also important pollinators, especially hummingbirds.  Mammalian pollinators include flying foxes, lemurs, and bats.  Like honeybees, most wild pollinators gather nectar from flowers as food, fertilizing plants in the process.  Honeybees often pollinate native plants less efficiently, reducing their numbers.  This results in fewer plants the next season to feed the native pollinators, who are more selective in their nectar collection.  This in turn reduces the number of native pollinators, which further decreases the pollination rate of the indigenous plants.  Predators dependent on the native pollinators may also be at risk.

            Ecologist James D. Thompson, Ph.D., of the State University of New York at Stony Brook calls honeybees “ugly pollinators,” undermining the activities of more efficient native pollinators.  Unfortunately, although bees are less efficient at pollinating many native plants, they frequently steal nectar from native pollinators.  Coupled with other factors, their huge numbers—artificially inflated by human intervention—is the primary problem.

            The competition between honeybees and native pollinators may also threaten commercial crops.  In 1976, Samuel McGregor of the USDA estimated that at least 150 major crops depend on wild pollinators, a figure that remains valid.  Officially, the USDA estimates that 20 percent of all cultivated crops depend on pollinators other than honeybees.  However, many regard this estimate as too low.  Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan, of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum , suggest that only 15 percent of the world’s crops are predominately pollinated by honeybees, leaving the remaining 85 percent dependent upon other pollinators.  Crops heavily dependent upon native pollinators include alfalfa, almonds, both common species of North American blueberry, cashews, cocoa, cranberries, mangoes, and squash.  There is general agreement among ecologists that some native pollinator species have already suffered substantial losses.

            As long as human consumers are willing to pay for honey and beeswax, it will be difficult to change agricultural practices and encourage commercial cultivation of native pollinator species.  Thompson notes that less than 2 percent  of the economic value of bees comes from honey, beeswax, and other bee-derived products—pollination is the real benefit.

Honey Isn’t Healthy

            Honey is no health food.  Despite its reputation as a “natural” alternative to refined sugar, it is simply another sweetener.  As noted before, honey is not a significant source of any nutrient except calories.  All the insecticides, fungicides, and pollutants in the nectar the bees collect are concentrated in the honey.  Beekeepers often use toxic chemicals in commercially kept hives to kill mites.  Although honey does not spoil, it is often contaminated with bacteria, molds, and fungi.  Doctors strongly recommend that infants less than one year old and individual of all ages with immune deficiencies (including HIV) avoid honey, especially raw (non-pasteurized) honey.  Botulism spores are a particular risk to infants, and may survive even in heat-processed honey.

            There is no lack of alternatives for bee-derived products.  Where honey is used to sweeten cereals, candies, pastries, and bread, such ingredients as raw sugar, molasses, corn syrup, rice syrup, barley malt, maple syrup, agave nectar, and varied combinations of these can be used instead.  Beeswax is widely used in candles, moisturizing creams, lip balms, pharmaceuticals, and as a coating on commercial fruits and vegetables.  Paraffin and plant-waxes such as carnauba are substitutes for beeswax in candles: cocoa butter, carnauba, and petroleum jelly can be used in pharmaceuticals and lip balms.  Propolis appears as an ingredient in some toothpastes and natural remedies, although some “propolis” is undoubtedly just tree sap.  Bee pollen and royal jelly are used in some natural remedies and candies.  Tree sap and pollen not collected by bees could replace propolis and bee pollen, respectively.

            Whatever the use, the cultivation of honey, beeswax, and other bee products causes bees to suffer and die.  Beekeepers kill wildlife to protect their economic interests; honey and beeswax production threatens biodiversity.  Our excessive reliance on honeybees as pollinators, driven by economics of honey and beeswax, may lead to crop failures.  With all of the available alternatives, the justification for bee-derived products ceases to exist.  So for the compassionate consumer and/or the enlightened environmentalist, bee products should just be gone.